Merryn Talks Money

Why You Should Confront Mortality, Ignore Strategists and Buy Coal

No one wants to call the downturn before it happens.
Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg
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Fancy confronting your morality? Or perhaps having a full-on existential crisis? Retire. That often does it.

In a personal finance edition of Merryn Talks Money this week, we picked up a reader question about how hard it is to stop focusing on saving and start on spending. You probably have (or had) a target in mind for the sum you want to have in retirement. Maybe it is £500,000 ($670,000), maybe £2 million, maybe £10 million. Whatever. You spend decades working towards it. You get there, or at least as close as you can. Then you retire. Result!